The Detonator 56.55 is actually WHQL Certified but not official yet and has some new features that are worth noting :

1. Support GeForce FX 5500, GeForce FX 5700LE and GeForce FX 5700VE 2. Application profiles that allow you to select profiles for different games and also customize your own preferred settings 3. Under Performance & Quality settings, you can force mipmaps to either None/Bilinear/Trilinear and set Hardware acceleration for single or multi-display modes 4. Under Advanced Direct3D settings, there are 3 new options; NULL fixed function, NULL PS 1.x and NULL 2.x option to improve performance in pixel shading demanding applications. 5. If you have enabled Coolbits, you will have the frequency adjustments page to overclock. Before you start overclocking, you need to agree to the overclocking license. The page offers “No overclocking” and “Manual overclocking” but some users will have the additional “Auto Overclocking” that allows the software to detect the best overclocked speed for you just like the ATi “OverDrive” function. However, it is most recommended to tweak the clock frequencies manually to obtain the optimum performance.

In conclusion, Detonator 53.03 is still faring better in most of the benchmarks like 3DMark2001SE, UT2003, UT2004, SplinterCell and Quake III Arena but there are some nice improvements in 3DMark2003’s Pixel Shader 2.0 test, Aquamark 3 and Serious Sam SE.

The Detonator 56.55 is actually WHQL Certified but not official yet and has some new features that are worth noting :

1. Support GeForce FX 5500, GeForce FX 5700LE and GeForce FX 5700VE 2. Application profiles that allow you to select profiles for different games and also customize your own preferred settings 3. Under Performance & Quality settings, you can force mipmaps to either None/Bilinear/Trilinear and set Hardware acceleration for single or multi-display modes 4. Under Advanced Direct3D settings, there are 3 new options; NULL fixed function, NULL PS 1.x and NULL 2.x option to improve performance in pixel shading demanding applications. 5. If you have enabled Coolbits, you will have the frequency adjustments page to overclock. Before you start overclocking, you need to agree to the overclocking license. The page offers “No overclocking” and “Manual overclocking” but some users will have the additional “Auto Overclocking” that allows the software to detect the best overclocked speed for you just like the ATi “OverDrive” function. However, it is most recommended to tweak the clock frequencies manually to obtain the optimum performance.

Pentium 4 EE 3.2GhzABIT Siluro GeForce FX 5900 (350/850Mhz)

Detonator 53.03

Detonator 56.55

3DMark2001SE

17408

17182

3DMark2003

5858

5840

3DMark2003 Pixel Shader

34.3

43.5

Aquamark 3

45857

46117

UT2003 Demo (Flyby)

251.8

247.8

UT2004 Demo (ONS-Torlan)

94.4

91.6

SplinterCell 1.2b (1_1_1_Tbilisi)

62.7

60.3

Serious Sam SE 1.5b (VRZ Demo)

113.7

116.5

Quake III Arena (Demo004)

473

442

Detonator 53.03 is still faring better in most of the benchmarks like 3DMark2001SE, UT2003, UT2004, SplinterCell and Quake III Arena but there are some nice improvement in 3DMark2003’s Pixel Shader 2.0 test, Aquamark 3 and Serious Sam SE.

There is an area of concern as users can now improve the 3DMark03 score by forcing textures to lowest MIP but image quality drop substantially. When NULL options are checked, basically the whole screen turns white.